I can't access the site (June 2001)

June 21, 2001 7:29 AM

Recently I discovered that I was mysteriously unable to access MeFi from my home peecee running Win98. I keep getting server timeouts. I tried Netscape 4.74, 6, and even IE to no avail. I didn't see this problem until recently.

At work I've got an O2 and a Dell laptop running IRIX and NT4.0 respectively. Both systems are running Netscape 4.74 and I seem to be able to access MeFi just fine.

Is this a problem with cookies, or a sinister plot to drive Win98 lusers like me insane? Please, give me another reason to hate this OS.
posted by MrBaliHai to Bugs at 7:29 AM (5 comments total)

Sounds like a network problem, not an OS issue. It might be simpler to assume that your ISP's routing tables are screwed somehow, or that one of their lines is down. Give 'em a call if it's still borked when you get off of work?
posted by darukaru at 9:26 AM on June 21, 2001

Do you get actual server timeout messages from the server? or from the browser?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:49 AM on June 21, 2001

darukaru: it doesn't seem to be a problem with the ISP. I can hook up my Dell to my home network and access the site w/o problems.

mathowie: IIRC, the message is "server not responding" and I get this with both Netscape and IE. I'm at work right now, so I'll check on the exact message later this evening.
posted by MrBaliHai at 10:23 AM on June 21, 2001

Cookies. A corrupted cookie file seems to timeout the server. Munch'em and try again. Matt and I went around and around about this about six months ago, and it seems to pop up intermittently for other people.
posted by rodii at 10:40 AM on June 21, 2001

Okay, after some more experimentation I've determined that it's definitely not the cookies and the timeout messages are coming from the browser; I get a "server is down or not responding" message from Nyetscrape. When I configure my browser to use my employer's proxy server instead of a direct internet connection, I can access the site fine, so it does seem likely that it's a routing problem with my ISP or possibly a setup problem with the networking on my PC.

Thanks for all of the replies!
posted by MrBaliHai at 7:28 PM on June 21, 2001